Akbari: Writing, Speech, Dialogue, and 'Word Art' in a Global Context.

This presentation will follow the thread of platonic concepts of spoken and written language, including the form of the dialogue, with particular emphasis on twelfth-century neoplatonic accounts of scientific and philosophical knowledge. Juxtaposing these with the epistemologies of present-day Indigenous writers including the late Lee Maracle (Sto:lo) and Sylvia McAdam Saysewahum (Cree) enables the emergence of new, shared questions regarding the respective roles of writing and speech, as well as individual and collective knowledge.